FOR FRAK'S SAKE THIS IS GOING TOO PEECEE FRAKKING FAR!!

Having unprotected sex with an infected partner puts you at risk of having AIDS.

Period, full stop.

A gay man who has never had sex is not going to spontaneously develop AIDS.

Two gay men who have never had sex before are not going to give each other AIDS.

Gay men who are monogamous are not going to give each other - or anyone else - AIDS.

But none of these men can give blood, based not on science, but on the societal assumption that, solely because they're gay, they're at risk.

 

She's paralyzed from the waist down!*

Will these attacks never end?






*okay, not really. But she gets around in a wheelchair most days. Her legs aint so great.

 

Jayzus H. Keerist, this debate has not advanced a pinky toe nudge since the 80's!!

I swear, this exchange, minus cusses, went back and forth in my 5th grade class!!

 

Really? My class talked about Ninja turtles.

 

We had a progressive teacher who half an hour a day discussed daily events in the paper with us.
AIDS was just coming into the collective conscious around '85 or so.

 

You are getting all emotional about this subject when it is not an emotional issue. The practice of pre-screening donors, along with advances in viral antigen and antibody testing have, HAND IN HAND, contributed to a vanishingly low rate of pathogen contamination in the U.S. blood supply.

You have conveniently ignored clear scientific arguments for the current standards of blood donor screening. And perhaps this is because you have limited knowledge of the subject, and of statistics, in general.

However, you also ignore the fact that the ability to donate blood is NOT A BASIC RIGHT and has nothing to do with civil liberties.

The screening process is all completely confidential, and the donors are not hurt or embarrassed when they are turned away.

In fact, I bet the Red Cross would still let those gay dudes have some Nutter Butters and orange soda, even though they can't donate. You know.... as a consolation prize. Because we ALL have a basic right to Nutter Butters and orange soda.*

*EDIT: except for those IV drug users... they're still subhuman filth. Oh.... and fat people. And diabetics. And 14th Doctor's mom. None of those bastards can have the Nutter Butters or the orange soda. Because if they're not full of AIDS, then they're probably at least full of Fail.

 

Garamet. Sometimes you just talk out your ass.

Gay men who have never had sex could donate blood.

The restriction is gay sex since 1977, even once. If someone says they are gay and a virgin, they could donate.

 

Unless, of course, they're wicked drug addicts. That, however, they brought on themselves.

 

Yep, yep, they said all that in 5th grade too.
The whole thing.
I'm in the Twilight Zone.

Now A.J. is gonna sit up and sing "my dog's got the chicken pox! He's home with the fluuuu!!", and then Shawn is gonna laugh snot out of his nose, and get sent to time out.

 

About the same time they quit selling this diet "candy":



I wonder why?

:flow2:

 

I remember that!!

 

You were in 5th grade in 1985?

I'm ten years older than you and I graduated that year, making you around 8 or 9.

 

I know a gay couple who've been monogamous for 30+ years. When they met, one man was a virgin, the other had had exactly one previous monogamous relationship that lasted eight years.

Neither can donate blood. Unless they lie and say they're not gay.

No straight couple is held to that standard.

And that makes sense to you?

 

I was 10.
...maybe it was 4th...I had the same teacher for 4th and 5th so it's a bit muzzy.

 

What, exactly, is emotional about anything in my post?

 

Fuck, if I was gay since 1977 and I was still a virgin, I'd become a drug addict too.

 

It's not that one post, it's your attitude in this thread. And now you're saying how you know a gay couple... blah blah blah. Well, that doesn't help your case for claiming emotional detachment.

So, actually, since you asked.... I'll just admit that I said "emotional" because I was trying to be nice.

What I really meant was "deliberately stupid".

Happy now?

 

Exactly.

 

And who are you again?

 

Garamet, not all gay men behave that way. What you are referring to, in this case, is something scientists call anecdotal evidence. We call it that, and then we laugh at the people that cite it as fact.

For every example you can give of a gay man in a stable monogamous relationship, I can give you an example of a gay man that engages in high-risk behavior despite knowing better.

Published studies and 30 years of perfecting the pre-screening and screening process trump your observations on a few gay men.

As a group, they are a higher risk. It is a scientific fact. Deal with it.

OR!!!!! You could do a blinded randomized study of the viral transmission/infection rates of HIV in the heterosexual population versus the homosexual population. Then, if you can prove with the power of statistics that the rate is not different, or that it is not a matter for concern, you can publish it in a recognized peer-reviewed journal. Then use your study, as well as other supporting studies, to petition the FDA to change its pre-screening standards.

OR!!!!! You can whine loudly on a message board that "it's not fair" and then propose to put the entire blood supply at higher risk just because you suffer from the misguided notion that giving blood is essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

This thread deserves a LOL BUTTSECKS!

 

Black women in the United States have the fastest growing rate of new HIV infections of any group in America. As a group, they may soon pass gay men.

http://www.advocatesforyouth.org/PUBLICATIONS/frtp/youngaawomen.htm

Should black women be prohibited from donating blood?

 

So what happens if I like fucking random women in the ass?

 

Yeah, try hanging a "No Colored Women!" sign outside of blood banks, and see the shit fly.

But gays are fair game I guess.

 

Exactly...better safe than sorry. I can't donate because I've been to Iraq, and served in the U.K. from 1980-1982 (mad cow disease).
This is totally a health and safety issue IMO. Certain people are just higher risk, period.

But if you can't donate blood, maybe there are other ways to contribute to whatever health cause you might be into.

 

So we'd all be a-okay with hanging a "No Black Women!" sign up at blood banks then?


Anyway, how can they stop gays from donating? Gays could just lie during the screening questions...

*DUR!*

 

But you have been to Iraq. There is no assumption of behavior.
But the prohibition against gay people does make an assumption. I have never been to a bath house, and I've been in a monogamous marriage for almost two decades.

It is just bad policy. The screening process should ask about your behavior..not your orientation.

 

Very true, anybody can lie about it. You really take a risk every time you get a transfusion. Tainted blood has killed people in all countries.
I'm not a medical expert...but isn't there available technology to examine donated blood for impurities? If not, there should be.

 

If you start carving watermelon an fried chicken, you know you got blood from a black lady.

If you start talking like MAHOS, you got gay blood.

But by then it's too late.

 

Only if they have been black within the past year. It should not be a lifetime prohibition.